Long Term Versus Temporary Certified Emission Reductions in Forest Carbon-Sequestration Programs

Under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol, forest projects can receive returns for carbon sequestration via two credit instruments: temporary (tCERs) or long-term certified emission reductions (lCERs). This article develops a theoretical model of optimal harvesting strategies that compares private optimal harvest decision under these two instruments. We find that risk neutral landowners are likely to prefer instituting lCERs over tCERs to maximize surplus. A particular type of early harvest penalty implemented under the lCERs is critical in determining the length of rotation intervals and the carbon credit supply. When this penalty is an increasing function of the difference in biomass before and after harvesting across verification periods, the landowner may choose longer or shorter rotation intervals compared to the Faustmann rotation. The resulting supply curve may have a backward bending region over a range of carbon prices.forest rotation, long term certified emission reductions (lCERs), carbon sequestration

Long Term Versus Temporary Certified Emission Reductions in Forest Carbon-Sequestration Programs

Under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol, forest projects can receive returns for carbon sequestration via two credit instruments: temporary (tCERs) or long-term certified emission reductions (lCERs). This article develops a theoretical model of optimal harvesting strategies that compares private optimal harvest decision under these two instruments. We find that risk neutral landowners are likely to prefer instituting lCERs over tCERs to maximize surplus. A particular type of early harvest penalty implemented under the lCERs is critical in determining the length of rotation intervals and the carbon credit supply. When this penalty is an increasing function of the difference in biomass before and after harvesting across verification periods, the landowner may choose longer or shorter rotation intervals compared to the Faustmann rotation. The resulting supply curve may have a backward bending region over a range of carbon prices.forest rotation, long term certified emission reductions (lCERs), carbon sequestration, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q2, Q54, Q23,

Safety and Health in Biomass Production, Transportation, and Storage: A Commentary Based on the Biomass and Biofuels Session at the 2013 North American Agricultural Safety Summit

There is significant interest in biomass production ranging from government agencies to the private sector, both inside and outside of the traditional production agricultural setting. This interest has led to an increase in the development and production of biomass crops. Much of this effort has focused on specific segments of the process, and more specifically on the mechanics of these individual segments. From a review of scientific literature, it is seen that little effort has been put into identifying, classifying and preventing safety hazards in on-farm biomass production systems. This commentary describes the current status of the knowledge pertaining to health and safety factors of biomass production and storage in the US and identifies areas of standards development that the biomass industry needs from the agricultural safety and health community

Autonomous Light Management in Flexible Photoelectrochromic Films Integrating High Performance Silicon Solar Microcells

Commercial smart window technologies for dynamic light and heat management in building and automotive environments traditionally rely on electrochromic (EC) materials powered by an external source. This design complicates building-scale installation requirements and substantially increases costs for applications in retrofit construction. Self-powered photoelectrochromic (PEC) windows are an intuitive alternative wherein a photovoltaic (PV) material is used to power the electrochromic device, which modulates the transmission of the incident solar flux. The PV component in this application must be sufficiently transparent and produce enough power to efficiently modulate the EC device transmission. Here, we propose Si solar microcells (μ-cells) that are i) small enough to be visually transparent to the eye, and ii) thin enough to enable flexible PEC devices. Visual transparency is achieved when Si μ-cells are arranged in high pitch (i.e. low-integration density) form factors while maintaining the advantages of a single-crystalline PV material (i.e., long lifetime and high performance). Additionally, the thin dimensions of these Si μ-cells enable fabrication on flexible substrates to realize these flexible PEC devices. The current work demonstrates this concept using WO₃ as the EC material and V₂O₅ as the ion storage layer, where each component is fabricated via sol-gel methods that afford improved prospects for scalability and tunability in comparison to thermal evaporation methods. The EC devices display fast switching times, as low as 8 seconds, with a modulation in transmission as high as 33%. Integration with two Si μ-cells in series (affording a 1.12 V output) demonstrates an integrated PEC module design with switching times of less than 3 minutes, and a modulation in transmission of 32% with an unprecedented EC:PV areal ratio

Safety and Health in On-Farm Biomass Production and Processing

There is significant interest in biomass production ranging from government agencies to the private sector, both inside and outside of the traditional production agricultural setting. This interest has led to an increase in the development and production of biomass crops. Much of this effort has focused on specific segments of the process, and more specifically on the mechanics of these individual segments. From a review of the scientific literature, it is seen that little effort has been put into identifying, classifying, and preventing safety hazards in on-farm biomass production systems. This article describes the current status of the knowledge pertaining to health and safety factors of biomass production and storage in the U.S. and identifies areas of standards development that the biomass industry needs from the agricultural safety and health community

Assessing the impact of biofumigation and anaerobic soil disinfestation on soil biology, nitrogen cycling, crop establishment and yield in vegetable cropping systems

The need to develop alternative, environmentally benign pest management practices is one of the major challenges facing agriculture today. Novel alternatives to conventional fumigation practices in horticultural production systems can impact the chemical, biological and physical qualities of the soil in complex ways. Two such practices, biofumigation (BF) and anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD) have demonstrated success in controlling certain soilborne pests, although results are often inconsistent. In some cases, negative impacts on crop establishment and yields have been observed following the application of these treatments. The objectives of this research were to: 1) investigate delayed seeding of crops as a method to reduce stand inhibition following BF, 2) monitor the impacts of BF and ASD on nitrogen availability, soil temperatures and microbial activity, and 3) evaluate the impact of BF and ASD on yields of warm season vegetable crops in southern Michigan. Experiments were conducted at the Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center (Benton Harbor, MI) and the Horticulture Teaching and Research Center (Holt, MI) to address these objectives. In the first experiment, delayed seeding of a susceptible crop (Cucumis melo `Athena') 10-15 days after BF resulted in satisfactory emergence. Yields of melon decreased significantly as planting date was delayed, however, highlighting the importance of early seeding of long-season vegetable crops during the short growing season of Michigan. In the second experiment, combinations of spring-sown brassica cover crops and plastic mulching treatments were established to evaluate the potential for BF and ASD to improve yields of fresh market tomato (Lycoperison lycopersicum `Big Beef') and slicing cucumber (Cucumis sativus `Cortez') while also evaluating the impact on nitrogen availability, soil temperatures and microbial biomass. As a standard ASD control, molassess was added as a carbon source for ASD in 2013 and caused dramatic reductions in N availability for the early part of the growing season while visibly stunting tomato growth. Although cover crop treatments did not significantly impact yields or N availability, black plastic mulch treatments had substantially higher NO3- and NH4+ during and immediately following ASD. Extremely high soil temperatures were also observed under plastic mulches in 2012 and are believed to have caused lower total marketable yields in tomato than bare ground treatments (under which soil temperatures were closer to the optimal root-zone temperatures for tomato growth). Results of this research highlight the importance of understanding how both alternative and commonly utilized cropping practices can influence environmental conditions in vegetable production, while identifying areas that must be addressed to effectively implement BF and ASD in the future for vegetable producers in southwest Michigan.Thesis (M.S.)--Michigan State University. Horticulture, 2014Includes bibliographical reference

Protecting cattle feedyard workers in the Central States region: Exploring state, regional, and national data on fatal and nonfatal injuries in agriculture and the beef production sector

Working in agriculture can be dangerous. Despite ongoing efforts of Extension, animal production worker safety has not been adequately addressed. We present state, regional, and national counts and rates on fatal and nonfatal injuries in agriculture and animal production using publicly available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We found that animal production had a high number of fatal injuries and a higher rate of nonfatal injuries than the average within agriculture. More needs to be done to protect livestock workers from injury. Extension professionals can play a key role in increasing safety knowledge and changing behaviors

Substance use disorders in the farming population: Scoping review

Purpose The purpose of this scoping review is to summarize the current knowledge base in order to make recommendations for prevention and treatment of substance use disorders among the farming populations. Methods We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed articles published between January 1989 and September 2019. The search yielded 3,426 citations and the final review was conducted on 42 articles. The full review was conducted by 4 authors to extract information about the target population, data collection methods, and main results. Findings There were 21 articles on farmers and 21 articles on farmworkers. The majority of the articles were about alcohol. Overall, farmers had higher prevalence of risky alcohol consumption patterns than nonfarmers. The prevalence of risky alcohol consumption was also high among farmworkers compared to the general population. Risk factors for risky alcohol consumption included male gender, lower socioeconomic status, and psychological problems (eg, depression). Recommendations for prevention and intervention of alcohol disorders included policy development and implementation to curb alcohol access by taxation, screening of alcohol-related problems, and alternative means of recreation instead of alcohol consumption. Conclusions This review confirmed that alcohol-related problems are prevalent among farmers and farmworkers. More population-based research is called for to understand the additional risk factors of alcohol disorders and the prevalence of other substance-related disorders. Also, interventions should be tailored to the unique culture of farmers and farmworkers

Racial/Ethnic differences in the prevalence of anxiety using the Vanderbilt ADHD scale in a diverse community outpatient setting

Objective Pediatric anxiety is prevalent but frequently under-diagnosed compared to other behavioral conditions in primary care practice. Pediatricians routinely screen for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder using the Vanderbilt Rating Scale, which includes a short screen for anxiety. We sought to examine the prevalence of potential anxiety among patients whose parents originally had concerns of disruptive behavior in a diverse setting and examine differences in anxiety across ethnic groups using the Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Rating Scale (VADRS). Methods This was a cross-sectional analysis of medical records data of children between the ages of 5–12 years whose parents had concerns of disruptive behavior and received primary care from May 25, 2010 to January 31, 2014 at 2 pediatric community health clinics in Indianapolis. Results 16% of children whose parents had concerns for disruptive behavior screened positive for anxiety based on the VADRS screen. Hispanic parents were less likely to report symptoms of anxiety (Spanish-speaking: AOR 0.4, 95% CI 0.2 – 0.8; English-speaking: AOR 0.3, 95% CI 0.1 – 0.9) compared to white and black families. Conclusion Anxiety is detected at a lower rate among Hispanic pediatric patients using the VADRS. This may suggest differences in the performance of the VADRS among Spanish speaking families

Augmented Reality Farm MAPPER Development: Lessons Learned from an App Designed to Improve Rural Emergency Response

Fire departments have right-of-entry to most commercial industrial sites and preemptively map them to identify the onsite resources and hazards they need to promptly and safely respond to an emergency event. This is not the case for private farms. Emergency responders are blind to resources and hazards prior to arrival and must spend critical minutes locating them during an emergency response at a farm location. The original 2013 Farm Mapping to Assist, Protect and Prepare Emergency Responders (Farm MAPPER) project was undertaken to develop a method to give emergency responders an up-to-date view of on-farm hazard information to safely and efficiently conduct emergency response activities on private agricultural operations. In 2017, an augmented reality version of Farm MAPPER was developed to combine the technological advantages of geographic information system-based data points with a heads-up display and graphical overlay of superimposed hazard imagery and informative icons. The development and testing of this iOS- and Android-ready prototype uncovered lessons learned applicable to other mobilebased apps targeting farmers, ranchers, and rural populations faced with limited or inconsistent mobile internet connectivity